simple thoughts~encouragement captured through image & word

hello! i'm paige & i'm so glad you're here.
simple thoughts is my personal journal. my life is not perfect, yet i humbly open the pages of my story & invite you to c'mon in and stay a while.
i consider myself blessed beyond measure to share life with dan and our four girls, savannah, madison, emily & caroline.
a lover of caffeine free diet coke, monograms, anthropologie, running, my golden retriever brinkley and above all else, jesus.
seeing life through a lens, i constantly find myself thinking of my world as art, full of color and beauty . it's my attempt to capture the grandeur of everyday that can easily be passed over. after receiving requests and encouragement from friends and family, i launched my own business, paige knudsen photography, in the fall of 2011. i'm a natural light photographer serving the atlanta area.

recently another passion found it's way into my heart. Noonday Collection . noonday offers accessories handmade by vulnerable groups of people around the world. our aim is to style you while creating a pathway out of poverty for artisans and their families through dignified sustainable income. having been widowed at the age of 30, i feel a kindred connection with many of these women. you can be a voice for the oppressed too!

hope heals

3.17.16

“The bride,

though now unable to walk down any aisle or clearly speak her wedding vows

or eat her beloved wedding cake,

was somehow, impossibly more radiant than she was then.

Now she glowed with the light of life restored.”

~jay wolf

(above image borrowed from web)

i finished the soon to be released ‘hope heals’ last night. i’m fairly certain that as i laid the book in my lap i made an outloud sigh, tears streaming down my face. i read the epilogue three times and couldn’t remember the last time a book wrecked me as this one just did. i wanted to text katherine & jay and tell them how much their story touched my heart…and then just as quickly i realized i don’t have their number! haha-well of course i don’t have their number but that’s how their story reads. it’s as if you’ve been snuggled up in a comfy chair, well actually on the edge of your seat, with real life friends katherine & jay sitting across from you while they share. jay’s gentle & loyal demeanor and katherine’s wit and candor despite living through tragedy makes these saint-worthy souls just so real.

last month i listened to katherine share at IF gathering. her story blew me away. i came home from austin & immediately pulled up her website. hours passed as i read snippets of their story & watched their documentary & then laughed and cried again as i watched her you tube videos referred to as chocolatekatchats.

this beautiful young couple, full of personality, hopes & dreams for the future, became husband & wife on november 6 in a large celebration with hundreds of friends. 8 years prior, on that same day, november 6, my life as a young couple ended in a small hospital room with a small handful of friends. i remember leaving the oncology floor and thinking to myself that my world had just stopped yet it was truly only ‘my world & my crisis’. babies would be born that day, weddings would be attended that weekend. celebrations seem to call for large gatherings don’t they, yet tragedy can feel so isolating. jay spoke to that very feeling on one of the first pages of their story. just three years into life as newlyweds, katherine was admitted to the ER at UCLA just three years later, having just suffered a massive brain stem stroke. she should have died that day.

last night in my comfy chair, as i closed the book i reflected on the power of a transparent heart & the power of sharing stories not only our own healing, but in the healing of others. transparency has long been one of my favorite character traits. jay and katherine nail the transparency issue. they knock it out of the park actually. i thought about how i was really unable to write when gregg battled cancer…or perhaps the reality of seeing our story unfold on paper was just more than i could bare. i did feel isolated in our crisis. yet i think that’s one of the things that really touched my heart with jay & katherine. they share over & over about how they’ve let others into their pain, and honestly in doing so hope has grown within that sacred place.

we will all go through suffering at some point in our lives. our loved ones will go through suffering at some point in their lives. to see a glimpse into how this beautiful young couple walked through the valley of the shadow of death has left a lasting impression on me. ever since my own family’s crisis i’ve struggled with fear and while i’ve never experienced physical crippling, the spiritual and mental crippling fear can unleash has been overwhelming at times.

“i don’t hang out at that place of fear & questioning what might happen. i think there’s something profound about hope. there’s something so meaningful when you cling to something beyond what you know & understand. and when that’s in there, deep within your head and within your heart and you believe it with every ounce of your body, something happens… hope heals, where it hurts the most, which is your soul.” you hear katherine so eloquently say this in their documentary yet in reading their story you watch as this unfolds.

i wanna hold jay & katherine’s faces & say…you two kids are gonna change the world with your love story. you are! thank you jay for showing us a picture of unconditional love in the flesh. i think each groom should read this handbook on radical love. i really do. ( that’s a little mother of the bride nod to your dad & his annoying wedding ceremony directive-wink!). katherine, i think if i’d have had your number last night, i would have called & been a weeping mess. girl, your ability to make the largest mountains seem climbable and the deepest valleys a place where god’s hand can be trusted even if seemingly unseen has left me wrecked in the sweetest sense. you said that maybe it takes life being undeniably terrible before we can truly recognize its undeniable splendor. i think that the sharing of your story of terrible has painted a beautiful canvas of undeniable splendor & those of us who’ve been blessed to witness this beauty will be changed forever. remember how you mentioned your love of a beautiful art museum & how “true beauty viscerally connects us to God and reminds us, in ways platitudes cannot, that we are beautiful to Him”? it’s funny you spoke of the transcendent beauty found in art. in my minds eye i see your story as if it were a painting of the ocean during a storm and despite the stormy seas, the art leaves me with a sense of peace. oh girl, you are effervescent beauty to Him indeed!

the book releases on april 26th but you can preorder it now, here & here. in my humble, honest opinion, i think this story has the power to change your heart, to make you stronger if you need strength…or softer if your heart battles bitterness…maybe both. there’s a place in each of us that needs to hold fast to an anchor when storms rage around us. hope in something beyond our strength, hope in something beyond our comprehension will indeed heal.

hebrews 6.19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil

Lydia -Wow, Paige! This is an awesome review of the book. I especially love the glimpse into your parallel experience its suffering! Thanks for heading up this launch team and being vulnerable yourself!

March 17, 2016 - 4:47 pm

Emily -Katherine & I worked together at Camp DeSoto. She and Jay are the real deal. I can’t wait to read the book (I have it pre-ordered already!) Thank you for sharing your story of November 6 – wow!

March 17, 2016 - 7:00 pm

Lisa Mothersead -Hope. What a wonderful story. It’s amazing how we can push and challenge ourselves to find the courageous strength that saves us.

March 18, 2016 - 12:19 pm

chrissi -i have followed these two for a while. their story inspires me each time i read it. their love is beyond what we often think of today. for hearts so young they have lived so much. i can’t wait to read this book and have already put it on my gift list this year. i can’t think of anyone who could read it and not be changed. thank you paige for sharing their story. the world needs to know about these two♥

March 22, 2016 - 4:34 pm

Jennifer -I will preorder just reading this review. Sounds like something my soul needs to read! 🙂
THank you for sharing.

April 5, 2016 - 9:45 am

Kitty-This is amazing! Thank you for the review. May I ask, are there spiritual overtones? I help with a Christian book club and wondered if it’d be a good read for us…we love creative non-fiction that has a good storyline…wondered if it were Christ-centered, inspirational, or what. Thank you in advance!

June 29, 2016 - 8:08 pm

Tara -They spoke at Athens Church a few weeks ago—very powerful. I’ve followed their story from the very beginning—so much love—so much faith—so much of God’s power displayed in their lives.